The Many Forms of Bullying

Yesterday we focused on understanding the bully. Today, we are talking about the three types of bullying – Physical, verbal and relational.

Physical Bullying, due to its visible nature, often attracts the most attention. It can include slapping, hitting, psychical violence and destruction of property belonging to the victim. It is most often perpetrated by male bullies, though this is starting to change.

What I find most interesting, it actually accounts for less than 1/3 of reported acts of bullying. Also interesting, bullies who use this method of bullying are often the most troubled and more likely to be headed for serious criminal offenses.

Verbal Bullying is equally perpetrated by both male and female offenders and accounts for the majority of reported acts of bullying (70% or more). It is often easy to get away with and can have devastating impact to the victim.

Verbal Bullying often consists of taunts, name-calling, and other verbal forms of abuse. Gossip is included in this type of bullying. It is typically the earliest form of bullying and can be the gateway to both physical and relational aggression.

Relational Aggression is the most difficult form of bullying to detect from an outsiders point of view. As defined by Barbara Coloroso:

“Relational bullying is the systematic diminishment of a bullied child’s sense of self through ignoring, isolation, excluding, or shunning.” (pg 17)

This type of bullying typically occurs from late elementary through high school, if often perpetrated by girls, and is used to reject the peer with a purposeful intention that is devastating. It is extremely difficult to detect because it involves things as covert as a particular roll of the eyes or hostile body language. I will be posting a great story of a friend who experienced relentless relational aggression at the hand of her gifted classmates later in the month.

These three forms of bullying is hard individually – but when they combine, the impact is devastating!

In our next post we will examine the difference between teasing and taunting.